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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (67698)	2/7/2003 4:23:29 PM
From: Fred Levine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Zonder-->>It really winds me up to hear from reasonably cultured people in the west such verdicts regarding people of the Middle East a la "they are determined to destroy as many westerners as possible" or "they are not constrained by our morality".<< Zonder-- There are differences and the differences are widely acknowledged. Many Arabs have a tribal mentality which requires them to regard an attack on one as an attack on all. In addition, the tribal mentality requires that revenge be taken to any member of your tribe that did damage to any member of my tribe. That is evident as justification for the suicide bombers in Israel and the WTC. Not only is this written about, it is directly expressed by my Arab friends. The west is much more individualistic, and our concepts feature individual responsibility both for crime and punishment. That is why the suicide bombers are celebrated in the Arab world, while we would abhor the same actions if Israelis bombed Palestinian busses. We were appalled by the machine gunning that took place in the mosque. It was a disgrace to the Israeli\western sense of morality. Whether you get wound up or not, these differences exist. Karen Armstrong is a strong advocate of Islam as religion of peace and she makes this point. In addition, one tradition in Islam, articulated by Bin Laden, is that jihad is accepted as a method of conversion. Conversion by force or eliminating the infidel exists as one part of Islam. I had previously quoted both Lewis and Armstrong on this. Armstrong, in her defense of the jihad stated that the west misunderstands it. She goes on to state that islam is religion of peace, but that "only" just wars are permitted. I regard that statement as opening the door to all wars, since even Hitler saw his "lebensraum" war as just. To anticipate you, all the major religions have a history of similar crimes. However, for both Christianity and Judaism, using force to extend God's will has been long gone. In addition, Islam is a very compassionate religion with a great emphasis on sociual justice, and helping those in need. I am an equal critic of religions, but there are differences. fred